Famous Last Words
by thecolouryes
Summary: Rated T for language and slight morbidity. How will Julia's rash decision affect the friends she's left behind?


**Famous Last Words**

**A Harry Potter Angst/Romance Fanfic**

**Summary:  
**_**How will Julia's rash decision affect the friends she's left behind?**_

**Rated T for language and, because it's me, slight morbidity.**

**Disclaimer: All canon things Harry Potter belong to the wonderful JK Rowling. The title and unnamed song at the end belong to My Chemical Romance. Julia Harlan, the cursed knife, the ringing man, Smethwyck (he's not the one you're thinking of, I can guarantee it), the Marcus Harleton ward, and Marie Harlan/Black (aka the unborn child) are all that I claim of this story.**

**A/N: After the story of NADCT comes this sad tale. I'll warn you now that it can be considered bloody, morbid, and depressing, but I intended it to be that way. It's my personal best when it comes to fanfics (stories in general, for that matter), and it's best read in 11 pt Calibri, 1.15 spaced, of course, and intended every paragraph except the first of every section (excluding the part that's Regulus's **_**and **_**Julie's memory; that's spaced correctly), with "narrow" margins – approximately .5" on all edges. **

**(8856 words)**

"Kreacher?" I ask the darkness of my room. With a sudden, loud, _crack_, the Blacks' house-elf appears in front of me. "Kreacher, where is Regulus?"

"Master Regulus forbade Kreacher to tell. Master Regulus forced Kreacher to make him drink it. And Kreacher made Master Regulus drink it all, and then he switched the lockets. But Master Regulus forbade Kreacher to tell anyone, even my Mistress. Master Regulus forbade it." The house-elf who adored my Regulus so greatly pounds his head upon the floor, punishing himself for the cryptic messages he has leaked to me. Despite their obscured meaning, I fear the worst. Kreacher babbles on, punishes himself again, and babbles on even more cryptically. I don't take in a word of it, for I am numb with shock. He'd always said he'd do it; he'd always said he'd happily die for the right side. And recently, he had finally seen which the right side really is. And we had figured out this mystery together, through hearing the Dark Lord's boasts, through quite a few brilliant guesses along the way, and through hours of studying old books together, hours in which I made up for the time I'd lost in our school years.

"Kreacher, I am going to order you to do something, but I am also going to ask that you please do it for Regulus, and if you can't, I'll understand. Kreacher, I want you to bring me Regulus." Kreacher stops his insane mantra of babbling and looks at me, with such grief in his eyes that I know the answer before I see it, but it won't be real until I see him.

Kreacher nods, and with a snap of his fingers summons my Black brother, my closest friend, my almost fiancé, my Regulus. And his hair is wet and his eyes are wide and his clothes are soaked like he was dragged into a lake and his hand is cold when I reach for it and my heart is in my throat and I press my lips to his but they're cold and unresponsive and my heart shatters into a million tiny pieces and I know that he is dead.

I cry; I weep; I sob; I completely fall apart, but it does no good; he won't come back, and I am finally glad that my small house is as secluded from others' as it is. I am glad that I am alone, but for the incomprehensibly babbling Kreacher.

"Kreacher," I say once I have regained enough control over myself to speak, needing a reason to be utterly and completely alone; "Kreacher, go back to Grimmauld place. Walburga will no doubt need you." And with a _crack_, the house-elf is gone. And he will no doubt be the last living soul I speak to.

I find a piece of parchment, a quill, and ink. I write a short letter – a suicide note.

_Dear Sirius – because I know you will be the first to find us –_

_Regulus did not die by my hand. All I can tell you for certain is that he died defending the right side. Kreacher may know the full story, if you can get it out of him. I know more than I can let on here, in case this somehow falls into the wrong hands.  
My death was no accident, either. I had to go when I did – my life ended with Regulus's, even if I didn't know it at the time of his death. I felt a part of myself die.  
I loved you, Sirius; I really did, but only ever as a sister loves her brother – only as you love Lily, or as she loves you. You have to know and accept that I really, truly, love Regulus and that I always have. And there is nothing you can do to save me now, for my heart has been shattered into a million tiny pieces that can never be re-assembled to form my whole, true heart, and I cannot function without my heart._

_I leave you my love, but my heart broke with his death.  
Julia Harlan_

I sign my name with an extra flourish, for it's the last time they'll hear from me. I dig in the desk drawer for an envelope, address it to Sirius, seal it with my family seal, and place it, in plain sight, on the desk. I then open another drawer, completely remove it from the desk, dump its contents on the floor, open the secret compartment in the false bottom, and pull out an ornate knife.

The fire crackles merrily in the hearth, as if taunting me with the beauty of the world I'm leaving. Outside, the snow glistens brightly with the same teasing edge. The sky is such a brilliant blue it would bring tears to my eyes had I not spent them all. Somewhere in the back of my head, a voice – Regulus's voice – protests my next move, but my will is too strong for it. I raise the knife to my wrist and slice, deeply, with all the heart-shattering pain I'm feeling put into it, where my watch band normally wrests. The pain, and blood, is so great that I nearly faint, but I don't – I repeat the same horizontal gash on my other wrist; matching wounds.

The crackling of the fire almost sounds like words. I look up. Sirius's head is calling my name in the fireplace. I see him; he sees me; for a moment, we lock eyes. Without breaking the visual contact, I stab the knife into my arm again, slicing the ugly tattoo adorning it in half. Sirius doesn't fully comprehend what I'm doing until I wrench the knife out of my left arm, pass it from my steadier right hand into my shaking left one, and repeat the long vertical scar on my right arm. Sirius screams my name, but I don't hear it; I'm dragging myself towards my Regulus, and taking out the ring box I know is in his pocket, and slipping on the ring – it's a beautiful, shimmery thing – and kissing his cold, dead lips, and whispering, "Yes, Reg, I will."

And I'm slipping into unconsciousness because of the blood loss and I'm hearing someone scream "NO!" but they are muffled, muted; Regulus is beckoning me on, murmuring something I can't make out; nodding, beckoning me to a land full of light, and I can see that he is waiting for me before he goes in himself, and I run to him and bring my lips to his, and there's a lot of unsaid things in that kiss, and when I break from it, I say, "Yes, Regulus, I _will_ marry you."

-----------------------------------------------

Sirius screams "NO!" even as he's spinning out of the fireplace. He runs over to where I lie unconscious, and brushes my long brown hair out of my face. Some of it is already caked in blood from the huge wounds on my forearms. "Jules? Julie?" he asks frantically, searching for some form of recognition. "Julie, don't die!" he whispers anxiously, looking for a pulse on my neck. I have one, but it's just barely noticeable. "Oh god, don't die, don't die – Julie, don't die!" he pleads, as if this will really help. "Oh, god, _Julia_!" he cries, tears spilling out of his eyes, off of his face and onto mine, mixing with the tears that I spilled for Regulus.

Sirius has no real idea of what to do. He rips the maroon sweater I'm wearing with the sleeves rolled up into long strips, which he uses to try to tie off the gashes in my arms. He then picks me up and carries me into the fireplace, and through the limited Floo Network that we've set up, connecting our homes, to the Potters' home in Godric's Hollow. Lily, who is sitting in front of the fireplace and reading a book, screeches when she sees the whirl of blood and bodies which is Sirius carrying me. As he stumbles out of the fireplace, Lily yells for James, who comes running.

"What happened?" Lily asks Sirius, who has gently deposited me on the floor, while she unwraps my arms. She cringes at the deep gashes I've made in them. "Accio dittany," she mutters, and a bottle comes flying in from the direction of the bathroom. She pours its contents on the long gashes, which bubble and sizzle sickeningly, but still stay just as open and gaping.

"Why won't they close?" Sirius demands. Lily shakes her head, confused. She pours more of the essence of dittany on the wounds. Once again, they bubble and sizzle sickeningly, but do not close, although they _have_ stopped gushing blood. "What's wrong with her?" Sirius demands again.

"I don't know," Lily replies.

"I wonder – did she use a cursed blade?" wonders James aloud, who has been unusually quiet up until this point.

"I don't effing know!" Sirius yells. "I just found her a few minutes ago!"

"How did you know to check on her then?" Lily asks. She's still pouring the dittany on my wounds to no avail. "Accio bandages." They also come flying in from the direction of the bathroom, and Lily tightly and securely wraps my arms.

"I had been looking to talk to her – I'd tried to talk to her through the Floo, but she didn't at first appear, so I started getting worried. Then I saw her – I saw her slice up her arms with some knife –" Sirius stops talking and his eyes widen.

"What is it?" James asks him.

"She had the goddamn knife! She had the fucking cursed knife, James! She was keeping it safe, remember?! And that's what she used!" James's eyes widen like Sirius's.

"What cursed knife?" Lily asks.

"Lily, you need to get her to St. Mungo's, quickly! The Floo Network is probably the safest way; I think that Apparating will be too hard on her." Lily nods and picks up my unconscious body, and then she steps into the fireplace with me, spinning away moments later.

"What are you going to do?" Sirius asks the man who could be his brother.

"_We_ are going to go to Julia's house to see what we can find – and maybe bring the Healers at St. Mungo's the cursed knife."

"Thanks, mate." Sirius replies. The almost-brothers use the limited Floo Network to get to my home. James tumbles out first, and notices the deceased Regulus immediately.

"You failed to mention that," James says to Sirius, who glances at his blood brother, and nods curtly.

"I thought Julia was more important." James gives Sirius a Look. James has many Looks up his sleeves. This Look has a meaning of something like, _What do you mean, Julia was more important than your own brother? _"I watched her do it, James," Sirius says, his voice dropping to a whisper as he continues on. "I thought she had a chance. I watched her take that cursed knife and slice through her putrid Dark Mark. I watched her taking the fucking knife that she _knew _was cursed, and she used it." By this point, Sirius has tears streaming down his cheeks. "She destroyed her beautiful, perfect skin, all for my fucking Death Eater brother! It's all for _him_ that she's dying!" Sirius has been unconsciously raising his voice for that last statement, so it comes out at a near shouting volume level.

James looks at Sirius; he _really_ looks at Sirius, and he sees the hurt in the elder Black's eyes, and he understands; he knows, now, how scared Sirius is that I won't make it.

Sirius's eyes fall on the letter on my desk that is addressed to him; James's eyes fall on the bloody knife, lying where I dropped it at Regulus's side. Each one picks up the item in his focus. James turns to Sirius, about to ask him something, and then he notices the envelope in Sirius's hand. "How did she know?" Sirius asks. "God dammit, Prongs, how did she know I'd be the first fucking person to find her?"

James has a look in his eyes that is almost pity. He says, "I'm taking the knife to St. Mungo's," and steps into the fireplace, to Floo to his house and then to St. Mungo's.

Sirius sits down on the floor next to his late brother and reads my short letter.

My suicide note.

-----------------------------------------------

At St. Mungo's, Lily stumbles out of the fireplace, but keeps her grip on my unconscious form strong. She doesn't stop to glance at the floor guide, but rather walks straight over to one of the witches in lime-green robes, who is in the middle of talking to someone with a less life-threatening malady than mine.

"Excuse me –"

"One moment, miss, let me just finish with this man." The witch in green turns back to the man, who, it appears, can't talk in human speech any more – he can only make ringing sounds by shaking his head.

"It's urgent! My friend's life is in danger!" Lily answers.

"Yes, yes, of course, I know it's urgent, just _hold on one moment._"

"You don't understand! My friend is going to _die_!" Lily yells. This doesn't get the witch in green's attention, either. The bandages on my arms have become filled with crimson blood, and are starting to leak. The ringing man notices it, and points and rings. Lily notices this as well. In a huff of annoyance, she stalks off, while the witch in green is still trying to interpret the ringing man's rings.

Lily carries me through the ground floor corridor. She stops one of the wizards in a green robe who isn't carrying anything in his arms – no antidotes, no bandages, no clipboard; nothing. "Excuse me," Lily politely says to him, and he stops, and pays attention to her. "This is my friend, Julia Harlan. My husband and friend believe that she tried to kill herself with a cursed knife. Can you do anything?" The wizard looks at the bandages on my arms.

"Could we get those off?" he questions her. "I'd have a better idea of what I'm dealing with if I can see the wounds."

"Sure. Can we get her a room somewhere, though?" Lily asks. "I really don't feel safe having her out in the open here." The wizard nods.

"Certainly. Follow me." The wizard leads Lily to the Marcus Harleton ward a few doors away, which, surprisingly, has no other patients in it. "You're undoubtedly lucky that you found me," the Healer says. "I specialize in cursed wounds. What did you say your name was?" he adds.

"I didn't, but it's Lily. Lily Potter." Lily lays my body on the empty bed and extends a hand.

"I'm pleased to meet you, Lily. I'm Healer Smethwyck, Robert Smethwyck, in charge of cursed wounds down here."

"I'm surprised you don't have more patients in here," Lily replies, helping Smethwyck to unwrap the bandages on my arms; "with You-Know-Who at large and..." Lily trails off, as she once again sees the horror of what I've done to myself.

"What's this from?" Smethwyck asks, pointed to the odd, crusty edges caused by the reaction to the dittany, which don't even begin to disguise the Dark Mark I've sliced in half.

"Well, I attempted to use essence of dittany on it, but it reacted in a strange way –"

"No, not that," Smethwyck says; "while I applaud your use of dittany, or the attempt; although in cursed wounds, it usually does no good. No, I was talking about the – oh." Smethwyck stops, realizing what the seemingly random pattern of black lines would be were it not chopped in half. "Oh, oh, oh." He shakes his head.

"Look," Lily begins, defending me, even if I'm dying; "she's no Death Eater – well, she is, but she isn't – look, it's too long and complicated to explain now, but can you please just help her? She's _dying_!" Smethwyck thinks for a moment, and then nods. Lily realizes that he knows that the best way to show where her allegiances lie is to bring her back.

"Alright, I'll help her. Do you have any idea how much blood she's lost?"

"I have no idea," Lily answers. "My friend arrived at our house with her already unconscious, presumably from blood loss. That was, oh," Lily shrugs; "about twenty, maybe thirty minutes ago. It's then that I tried the dittany the first time, if that helps any. I need to go back out into the reception; my husband said that he'd try to come back with the blade she used." So Lily excuses herself from the room where the Healer is getting to work on my body and walks back into the reception room, just in time to see her husband spinning out of a fireplace with a bloody blade wrapped in a handkerchief. "Where's Sirius?" Lily demands of her husband.

"He's at Julia's house," James says, giving Lily a reassuring one-armed hug, for she looks extremely worried to his eyes.

"What's he doing there?" Lily wonders.

"Reading something. A letter, I believe."

"To him?" James nods. Lily shakes her head. "I'll let you explain once we've gotten this to Smethwyck."

"Smethwyck?" James asks.

"Yes, he's the Healer that's taking care of Julia. She's in the Marcus Harleton ward. Follow me – you get to explain how you found that," Lily says, nodding towards the bloody knife. They walk down the corridor until they reach the Harleton ward, where Lily knocks. "Healer Smethwyck, are you in there? My husband brought the knife." A moment later, Smethwyck appears with the sleeves of his green robes rolled up and his greying hair tied back, out of the way.

"Come on in," he calls through the closed door. Lily turns the handle and she and James walk into the ward. I am lying on a bed in the middle of the room. A translucent silver liquid pours from a bottle onto the wounds in my arms. It appears to do nothing, but fresh bandages still wrap themselves around the wounds on my arms, which now have this translucent liquid over them, covering the ugliness.

"This is the knife we believe she used, sir," James says, handing the wrapped knife to the Healer.

"Smethwyck is fine," the Healer replies, turning the knife – still wrapped – over in his hands. "And you say we? Who else believes this?"

"Well, it was actually my friend Sirius who thought of it first. You see, we both knew that Julia had had a cursed knife that she kept hidden for safe-keeping, but we never would have believed that she would use it to kill herself."

"Sirius? That doesn't happen to be a common name among your friends, does it?" Smethwyck wonders aloud once James has finished

"No, why?" Lily replies.

"This girl here – Julia, did you say her name was? – said something about a Sirius and 'the better brother.'" Lily and James exchange a Look of their own. "What's going on?" asks Smethwyck.

-----------------------------------------------

"Julie," Regulus says, smiling; he goes down on one knee and pulls the ring box out of his pocket. He looks so serious and at the same time old fashioned, and yet he grins crazily and happily. "Julia, will you marry me?" He opens the box, like in some pictures I've seen – much too ridiculous for me (I crack up laughing) – and the ring, the beautiful, shimmery thing, sparkles.

"Of course, idiot, I already said I would!" I shake my head. "Get up, you." Regulus tries slipping the ring on my finger but it's too small for my ring finger; he slips it on my pinkie instead, where it fits snugly. I take a good look at it now. It is polished silver encrusted with miniscule diamonds along the band, and a ruby no larger than any one of the diamonds in the center. It's ornate, and looks expensive, but for all I know, it could be a family heirloom.

Regulus leans in to kiss me, and I suddenly smile, remembering when it was the other way around, when our relative heights were reversed, but they haven't been that way since Regulus's sixth year, when he finally became taller than me.

I break from the kiss early. "Let's wait until we're inside," I hiss. "I'd like to know that we have a house...." Regulus nods.

"Let's go," he says, and we turn to walk to the gate. Then, Regulus notices my arms, with the long gashes up the undersides. "Jules, what happened?" I look down and sigh. My Dark Mark, unfortunately, is still there, but the wounds I inflicted upon myself are nothing more than long scars running vertically along my arms, and two shorter, horizontal ones at my wrists. "Julie, what happened to your arms?"

"I – I – Regulus, I'm sorry," I cry, tears spilling out of my eyes and down my face.

"_What did you do to your arms, Julia?"_ Regulus demands.

"I – I couldn't live without you, Reg; I couldn't even kid myself into thinking it would be okay. When I asked Kreacher where you were and all he could do was babble, I suspected the worst. Once he brought me your dead body, I knew my life was over. I wrote your brother a suicide note – letter, I suppose – and cut up my arms with a cursed knife I had." I point to the largest, most intense gash, the one over my Dark Mark. "I wanted to get rid of this before I died, but apparently, it didn't work."

"Where did you get a cursed knife?" Regulus asks. "How did you – no, _why_ did you choose right when you found out about my death to take your life? And why did you think a knife would get rid of a Dark Mark?" I smile, though my face is still wet with tears.

"That, I honestly couldn't tell you," I respond. "And like I said before, I knew I couldn't live without you – more than a small part of me died when you did. I have yet to hear of someone living without their heart – and when you died, you took my heart with you."

"That still leaves the question of the cursed knife."

"Ahh," I respond. The question I've been dreading.

"You've been dreading that question, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have," I respond with a small smile. "Can we please put it off?" Regulus shakes his head with a smile on his face. "I really, really, really want to see our house."

"We don't have one yet!" Regulus points out incredulously.

"All the more reason to put it off! I refuse to discuss it except in the comforts of my home." Regulus rolls his eyes, but I can tell he doesn't really care. We have all the time in the world, now – and then some. We now walk over to the large, ornate wrought-iron gate which happens to be the entrance. There is a man sitting, looking bored, in a booth like a ticket booth at a circus or a fair.

"Name?" he asks in a bored voice.

"Regulus Black," Regulus answers.

"You're good," the man in the booth says in the same uninterested voice. He turns to me. "Name?"

"Julia Harlan." The man looks through his list, then looks through it again, and then looks up.

"Sorry, you're not on the list." Regulus and I look at each other, highly confused.

"What?" Regulus asks.

"How can I not be 'on the list'?" I demand. "How can I be here if I'm not dead?"

"Well, sometimes people come here when they're about to die, or if they're determined enough to be here," the man says, not sounding quite as bored as before.

"So I'm here because of how suicidal I was?" The man looks at me, at us; he looks at Regulus with his arm around my waist and the sparking ring on my left pinkie.

"I'd say that it has more to do with how much you wanted to be with him," the man says, nodding towards Regulus.

"So I'm not dead?" I repeat, just to be sure.

"Dying, yes, but not dead. Not yet, or your name would be on my list."

"Then how do you know that I'm dying?" I demand.

"Because you're here, of course. You can look in the Pond, if you want, to be sure."

"A pond?" I ask skeptically.

"Not _a_ pond, _the_ Pond. It's similar to a Pensive in the way it displays images, but it can tell dying people what's happening to them in the living world. Would you like to visit it?"

I glance at Regulus. I don't want to leave him now, just when I've gotten him back. "Can he come with me?" The man in the booth nods.

"Of course." He climbs out from behind the booth and leads us along a long, winding path. Eventually, we make it to what I can only guess is the Pond. It looks like any other pond, except that the waters are completely blue and don't reflect any part of the trees shadowing them.

"Is it always spring here?" Regulus wonders.

"Yes," the man from the booth replies; "every day is a nice spring day here."

"Where _is_ here, anyway? What is this place?" I ask.

"This, my dear, is Limbo."

"And who are you?"

"I am the Limbo man, the Afterlife guardian, the Watch Guard. My name is Joe."

"Joe," Regulus repeats disbelievingly.

"Yes. Joe," Joe replies.

"Alright, then, Joe, show us how this Pond of yours works."

"Julia, right?"Joe asks me.

"Julie is fine," I answer.

"Julie, then. Step up to the edge of the Pond and state your name and purpose – what you want the Pond to show you."

"Alright." A bit self-consciously, I walk up to the edge of the Pond. Suddenly, the lack of any sort of reflection seems ominous. "Uh... my name is Julia, Julia Harlan, and I'd like to see what I'm doing in the 'living' world, since this Joe guy here says I'm not dead yet. Thank you." The blue waters swirl, and colors other than blue come to them, and then suddenly it's like the Pond is a huge clear window, opening over the reception area of St. Mungo's. I can just make out Lily's familiar red hair as the over head view of the room starts to zoom in to where she and her husband are discussing something. "Now what?" I ask Joe.

"Wade into the water, and you will find yourself in the scene. Remember, though, that they can't hear you. If you want to go back, come back out, and I'll help you arrange the way out. Just don't spend too much time in there, watching yourself die, because if you spend too much time in there, you won't be able to go back, however much you want to."

"Come on, Reg, let's go! I want to see what my friends are doing to me." I reach out for Regulus's hand, and he grasps mine, and we wade in together, ready to find out whatever we will about my dying self.

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"James?" Lily asks. "Will you explain now?"

"What would you like me to explain first?"

"The cursed knife. It's more important."

"Alright." James takes a deep breath, about to begin either a complicated or a long story, it is clear. Unfortunately, Regulus and I miss his version of the story, because as soon as I hiss to Regulus, "the initiation knife," our scene changes, into a complicated combination of memories both mine and Regulus's.

---------------------------

"_Regulus, I would like you to give it to her," Lord Voldemort's cold voice drawled._

"Jules, could you come here a moment?" Regulus called from the front hall.

"_I – what?" Regulus asked, confused. The Dark Lord's chilling laugh rang out._

"What is it, Reg?" I answered. "I'm in the kitchen; come on in."

"_You know what I'm talking about, Black. It's time for her initiation."_

Regulus walked in from the front hall, carrying something in his hand, which I couldn't see over the counter.

"_She's not ready, my lord, she –" Regulus was cut off, once more by Lord Voldemort's laugh._

"What is it, Reg?" I asked again.

"_She's not squeamish, is she?" the Dark Lord asked._

"I – are you squeamish?" my boyfriend questioned me.

"_No, I don't believe so, my lord."_

I laughed. "No, what gives you that idea?" I gestured to the hare I'd so thoughtlessly caught and prepared for dinner that night. "Why?"

"_Then what are you worried about?"_

"No reason. There's something I've got to tell you, though."

"_I'm not sure," Regulus whispered, though the truth was clear: he didn't want me to fall into the same trap he was in._

"Spit it out, Regulus."

"_Go, Black. Go to her and tell her what she must do."_

"There's something you have to do." I gave him a Look that said clearly, _Yes, and?_ "There's something that the Dark Lord wanted you to do..."

"What is it?"

"_Tell her about the mud that she must murder."_

"I..."

"Out with it, or I'll be forced to punish you," I joked, brandishing a wooden spoon.

"You have to – er, get to – help with the purifying of the wizarding race." I shivered slightly. I hadn't exactly signed up for this job happily; I only did it to please my parents and so that I could spend more time with Regulus without running into stupid, meaningless trouble, but now it appeared that I'd have to be doing the bloody work as well. Regulus handed me the knife.

"What's this for?" I asked, taking the weapon from him and looking it over. Some instinct told me not to touch the actual blade, and I wondered if it was cursed. The handle had two ornate, interlocking S's inscribed and encrusted with jewels – emeralds, I thought – on it.

I glanced up, and Regulus gave me a Look that made the task ahead obvious. As little as I had looked forward to it before, when I had first suspected what it might be, I almost looked forward to it – or to getting it over, at least. I studied the blade again, wondering if it could have any effect on the way I was feeling about my task. "When?" I asked Regulus.

"As soon as you're ready." I turned the blade over in my hands.

"Tonight?" I asked. "Do you think the Dark Lord will have someone for me tonight?"

"Are you sure you don't want to –"

"No." I cut off Regulus, knowing that he was going to say "you can wait if you want to" or some such thing. However, the blade in my hand made me feel empowered and powerful. Suddenly, I wanted nothing more than to stab it into living flesh. "Now. We're going to the Dark Lord now." I practically dragged Regulus out of the kitchen's back door, and we Apparated to the Death Eater headquarters. I followed Regulus through a confusing maze of passages until we emerged upon a dimly lit room. Lord Voldemort sat in a large chair – a small throne, really – in the center of the room.

"My lord, I'm ready." Voldemort looked me in the eye.

"Yes, Harlan?"

"I'm ready for my initiation. I want to have some _fun_," I said, adding a smirk to the end of my statement.

---------------------------

"I'm a pure-blood, I'm a pure-blood," the witch cried.

"The Dark Lord doesn't care, missy," I replied. I had no idea where this strange attitude towards this whole ordeal was coming from, but, as I would learn some time in the next few days in which I studied the blade, the fact that I hadn't let go of the knife since the moment when Regulus handed it to me was important to that. "Traitors are as good as Mudbloods in his book." The witched, trapped kneeling on the floor, spat at my feet.

"Your blood is mud." I involuntarily lashed out at her, slitting her entire upper arm before I realized what I was doing. She gasped in shock as crimson blood poured from the wound, through the slash in her sleeve, and all over her torso, as she had stupidly hugged her hurt right arm close to her body, and was trying to stop the flow of blood with her left hand. "What was that for?" she cried. "I have a family to go home to, somewhere! And I didn't _do_ anything!"

I laughed insensitively, uncaringly, and I lashed at her again. Because of her kneeling position, I didn't have a clear target at her legs, so I shot for her side instead. Within seconds, her entire cloak was soaked with blood, but my crazed desire for blood was not satisfied. For half a second, I wondered whether slitting her throat or stabbing her in the heart would bring out more blood.

"I'm like a spider," I answered to her almost forgotten question, walking around behind her, and kneeling behind her, so that I could whisper my next words in her ear and execute my final move more easily; "I like to play with my food before I eat it." The last thing this witch I had never heard of knew was me hissing in her ear as my blade sliced her throat.

Both from kneeling in the unknown witch's bloods and the nature of her murder, my clothes were covered in blood. It was almost ironic that I chose that day to wear a thick maroon sweater that I rarely wore and old, patched jeans; as if I knew I would be doing the dirty work that afternoon. I wiped the blade on my cloak – it, too, was old; another article of clothing that I didn't mind about getting bloody.

I walked out of the cell to where Voldemort and some of his 'close' Death Eaters were waiting. I made to give him back the blade, but he commanded me, "Keep it," with what could almost have been a smile. I nodded. Leaving the room, I came across Regulus, my love – _love._ Suddenly, as if 'love' was the magic word, the reality of what I'd done crashed down upon me. I had killed a witch. _I had killed an innocent witch who hadn't done anything. And I had been happy about it._ With a small crack, I Disapparated to the first place I thought of that wasn't connected to Death Eaters in any way: Sirius's house.

---------------------------

I knocked on the door and within moments, James opened it. "Julie?" he asked incredulously, for I hadn't seen them for over a year. "Sirius, you'd better come out here, mate," he called to his close friend. "Jules, what happened?" I handed James the knife, and as soon as I had, a felt a great weight, a great tension releasing. I collapsed crying as Sirius walked into the front hall. He took one look at me on the floor, sobbing, and then ran over and hugged me close.

"Oh, Sirius," I mumbled into his chest once I had calmed down enough to talk; "I've done something really stupid." Sirius laughed, his familiar bark-like laugh comforting.

"It's okay, Jules; I've done some bloody stupid things in the past." I shook my head.

"Nothing like what I've done, though. Nothing _this_ stupid," I responded.

"How do you know?"

"Have _you_ ever killed an innocent person?" I asked, tears in my eyes. When James's eyes widened, and I saw them do so, I fell apart again.

"What did you get yourself into, Jules?" Sirius asked, shaking his head. I cried harder, knowing the stupidity of _everything_ I'd done since I'd last seen the Marauders. Instead of attempting to explain with words what had happened, because I knew I'd simply fall apart again, I rolled up my left sleeved and showed them my Dark Mark. It appeared to suffice. James went silent; Sirius cursed. I had learned to expect these reactions from them when something shocked them.

"What the bloody hell did you do to yourself, Julia?" Sirius demanded of me. I looked up from my Dark Mark, which I had been staring at, when Sirius used my real name. He _never_ did that.

"Why are you suddenly being so formal?" I asked him. "Why use Julia?"

"I don't know," Sirius replied carelessly, not paying attention to what I was saying because it didn't apply to the situation at hand. I shrugged it off. "What the hell did you do to yourself, Julie?" Sirius asked again, more gently this time. "Why the _fuck_ did you do it?" I gave Sirius an _I think you know the answer_ Look.

"Regulus," I whispered, not really for either of the guys' benefit, because I knew they could both figure it out. Sirius got up and stormed up the stairs. James looked after him, and then at me. "I'll be fine," I told him truthfully, so he followed Sirius out of the hall. I searched around for something that I could use to pick up the blade without actually touched the handle and that would be okay getting bloody. I ended up taking off my cloak and bundling the handle of the knife, which James had left on the table by the door, up in it. I placed the knife with the now ridiculously large handle back on the table and used a quick cleaning spell to get rid of most of the blood on my clothes and the cloak. I tried to ignore Sirius's ranting overhead, which proved easier when I had something to do, so I headed to the bathroom, to wash the blood off of my hands and attempt to get it out of my hair. I washed my hands and face, which didn't have any blood on it, but washing it was a way to kill time, and cleaned my long hair as best I could considering that I had no shower. Since only the ends had become caked in blood, it was fine. Then, I returned to the hall to wait for Sirius and James, and dried my hair with hot air from my wand in front of the mirror there.

Sirius snuck up beside me as I was doing this. "You look beautiful," he said. I jumped and then looked at him.

"Well, thank you, Sirius, you make it sound as though I'm not covered in blood-stained clothes," I replied, refraining from the answer I would have normally given about my being Regulus's because I knew it would just start him yelling again. Instead, he laughed. I picked up the knife and handed it to him. "What can you tell me about this knife?" I asked, handing it to him overly-wrapped handle side fire.

"It's cursed," James told us, coming down the stairs. "Definitely cursed. I have no idea how, or why, or by whom."

"There's one curse on the blade and another curse on the handle. They're similar, but not the same, and not connected. Other than that, I don't think there's anything that I can tell you," Sirius told me after he looked it over. "So, who's keeping it?"

"I am," I answered before I even knew what I was saying. "I'm keeping it because the Dark Lord thinks I'm keeping it. Also, I have the perfect place to hide it." I glanced at my watch. The sun had long set on this meeting. "I have to go now, guys."

"Stay in touch, Jules," Sirius ordered.

"I will," I promised with a smile; "if you will." I hugged both guys before taking the knife back from Sirius. "Bye," I called back to them as I walked out, Apparating to my secluded little home in the middle of practically nowhere, where I knew Regulus would be waiting for me to return.

---------------------------

Regulus and I spin out of the memories that are mostly mine, back to the present, with my friends watching over my dying body.

-----------------------------------------------

Sirius sits by my cot, holding my left hand in both of his. It's unusually cool, which Sirius finds disconcerting, and he continues to try to rub life back into it, which he has been doing for the past thirty minutes. "Oh, Jules, why did you have to be so stupid?" he whispers. He doesn't realize that, since I'm in the Pond, I can hear what he's saying – or that Regulus can. "He was a Death Eater. You _had_ to have known that – you were one yourself! How could you do that to yourself, Julie? How could you do that to us? All of us – myself, the Potters, you, and all your other friends on this side! You're an idiot, Jules," he says, shaking his head and tucking a stray hair behind my ear. "You're an idiot, but you're an angel. You're an angel who my brother didn't fucking deserve." Sirius plays with the ring on my pinkie finger. "He gave you this, did he? Were you going to tell me or simply leave me in the dark? That's almost ironic, leaving a Black in the dark," he notes, spinning the ring back and forth on my finger. Clearly, he's forgotten seeing me slip the ring on with my last dregs of consciousness. "You know what that means, though, don't you? You'll have to live with my mother as your mother-in-law. I pity you for that. Not that I could do any better – except that I'm not exactly on speaking terms with her anymore, so we wouldn't have to mention it to her."

"Excuse me, sir, are you family?" asks a Healer. It's not Smethwyck; it's one of his assistants.

"Almost," Sirius replies, placing the ring back on my pinkie. The Healer, thinking he understands but misinterpreting the situation entirely, nods. Sirius gets up out of his chair and stretches, yawning. My friends have had a long and trying day, and the fact that Sirius didn't get much sleep last night didn't help anything.

"You're a lucky man. She's a beautiful girl. Unfortunately, I have something to tell you that isn't so pleasant." Sirius's eyes widen. He thinks he can see where this is headed. "Due to the unfamiliar curse on the knife, which poisoned her blood the moment it hit it, and the speed at which she is losing blood, it's highly unlikely that she'll ever regain consciousness. Regrettably, that means that neither of them can be saved." Sirius slumps against the wall, defeated. He doesn't even have the will left to cry. Then, a part of the unknown Healer's sentence registers in his mind and Sirius's head pops up and he looks the Healer in the eyes.

"Did you say _'neither of them'_?" he asks. The Healer nods and looks confused himself at Sirius's mystified look.

"Yes, didn't you know that she's three months pregnant?"

"I – _what?!?"_

"She's three months pregnant," the now-mystified Healer repeats.

"Dammit, Regulus, what did you do to her?" Sirius yells to the not-so-empty air around him. Of course, Regulus is nearly as mystified as Sirius to the three-months-pregnant part of the discussion, which I've been keeping from him, but he laughs at his older brother's remark, and whispers something in my ear which makes me both blush and laugh simultaneously, and then playfully shove him. Of course, no one can hear us, so it's not a problem.

"Sir, is something wrong?" the Healer asks. Sirius shakes his head, muttering.

"No, nothing's wrong, now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go talk to my friends." And with that, Sirius excuses himself from the Marcus Harleton ward and heads back out to the reception area, where Lily and James are sitting, like they've just been talking about something. Regulus and I follow him with ease; apparently, there aren't the same kind of limits in the Pond that there are in a Pensive.

"Lily, James, I have some news," Sirius begins once he's within easy hearing distance of the couple. Lily and James share their own sort of Look.

"Is that good or bad?" James asks.

"It could be either," Lily points out. "You haven't specified which it is."

"I don't know what kind of news it is. Well, part of it is bad news. But another part of it, I don't know what kind of news it is. Either way, it's not going to matter, because it won't happen."

"Stop talking in code, mate," James says. "No one can understand what you're trying to say."

"Sorry," Sirius apologizes. "This is really hard to say, but she, she – Lily, James, Julie isn't going to make it."

"_WHAT?!"_ James yells. "Why not? What is preventing her from making it? We got her here, didn't we?"

"I don't know," Sirius replies, his voice no more than a whisper to James's shouting, though it increases in volume as he gets more and more annoyed. "I – some Healer said something about the cursed blade poisoning her blood or something, and too much blood lost, and – I don't know, James! I DON'T EFFING KNOW! I _DON'T_ KNOW EVERYTHING, IN CASE YOU HAVEN'T NOTICED!"

"Calm down, everyone," Lily says, putting a hand on both her husband's and her friend's shoulders. "I don't think Julie would appreciate you fighting." She sighs, and turns to address Sirius alone.

"Was there something else you wanted to tell us, Sirius?" Sirius's eyes glance at those of the couple, who are looking at him intently and waiting for whatever information he is going to share with them.

"Yes." Sirius begins to pace, going no more than five steps in one direction before turning around. Lily is worried by this behavior, and she wonders what's wrong with Sirius.

"Sirius, what's the matter? Is it about Julie?" Sirius nods, but doesn't stop pacing.

"Spit it out, mate; the suspense is killing me," James jokes. Sirius stops and gives him a hurt Look – one that clearly says, _Don't you dare joke about dying now._

"Julie's pregnant." The Potters stare at Sirius.

"Are you joking?" James asks.

"Do you honestly think I would joke about something like that?" Sirius growls, and starts pacing again.

"Relax, Sirius," Lily says soothingly. "What about the baby? Can it – is it a boy or a girl?"

"I don't know. The Healer didn't say."

"Hmm.... How many months pregnant is she?"

"Three."

"It's probably too early to tell," Lily decides. "But what about the baby? Can it be saved?" Sirius gives Lily such a Look that Lily herself almost cries. It's filled with so much pain and longing: it depicts everything that I gave to Regulus that Sirius didn't get. Sirius can't bring himself to speak; he just shakes his head, and then sinks into a chair, howling in pain like the dog he can so thoughtlessly become. Everyone in the reception area glances at him, sees that it's nothing worth paying attention to because it would just make they themselves embarrassed, and turns back to whatever it was that they were doing.

Still in the Pond with Regulus, I'm crying. I order him to take me out of the Pond, and he does, bringing me out of the Pond and laying me on the bank of it, where I cry for what seems like a long, long time. But this is not my part of the story; it's Sirius's.

"Oh, Sirius," Lily says comfortingly. She hurries over to him and hugs him tightly and quickly. "But you realize what this all means, don't you? You realize that –" Sirius cuts Lily off by handing her the letter I wrote for him. "What's this?"

"It's the letter," James answers for Sirius. He recognizes both the envelope with the bloodstain and my handwriting on the front. "I think he wants you to read it." So, Lily takes the envelope, sits back down next to James, and the two read it together.

Once they're engaged by the letter, Sirius stands up and goes back to the Marcus Harleton ward. Smethwyck is there, tending to the gashes on my arms.

"You can stop that," Sirius says. Smethwyck looks up, surprised.

"What?"

"I said, 'You can stop that.' She doesn't need any help anymore."

"What do you mean? There's still a good chance that she'll live." Sirius is taken aback.

"A Healer told me otherwise earlier." Smethwyck nods knowingly.

"That would be my trainee, Marlon. He still needs _quite_ a bit of training. There _is_ a good chance that she'll make it."

"And the child?"

"I don't know. Whether or not Julia herself makes it is up to her, and she doesn't exactly seem to be fighting to stay alive." Sirius nods.

"She wants to die," he says matter-of-factly.

"What?"

"Her fiancée died."

"Marlon said you were –"

"No. That would be my younger brother."

"Oh," replies Smethwyck, feeling insensitive indeed. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Don't be. I didn't like him very much." Smethwyck looks at Sirius.

"I'm sure you're just saying that; all brothers disagree sometimes."

"We didn't just 'disagree sometimes,'" Sirius replies, truly spilling his guts for the first time to this unknown Healer. "We rarely got along, but Julie managed to be friends with the both of us. It's been hard for her ever since we started school. She's been having a long eight years." Sirius sighs, tears in his eyes. "You have to take her off of whatever you've put her on. She doesn't _want_ to be here. She wants to be with her fiancée." Smethwyck looks at Sirius, with the tears streaming down his face, and knows that Sirius, who has known me, his patient, for years, is right.

I don't want to be here, or I'd be putting up more of a fight to stay.

"I can make it quick and nearly painless," Smethwyck says. Sirius doesn't trust himself to speak; he nods. Smethwyck presses his wand to my shoulder and mutters a spell. He didn't lie about the pain, but the shock of feeling the pain of what I've done to myself after I've been feeling nothing in Limbo for so long is so great that he might as well have lied. For a split second, I can see through my living eyes again; there is Sirius, standing there, with his face full of tears, and with my last breath of life, I smile at him, one final time. And then my eyelids droop, and I'm never going back there again. Sirius collapses, crying, and it's only moments before Lily and James discover him, and Smethwyck tells them what Sirius told him to do. And Lily and James agree with Sirius's choice, it is clear, even though they don't voice their opinion.

-----------------------------------------------

Regulus and I are lying outside of the Pond, which is apparently being nice today and showing the rest of what my friends are doing to my still-living, if only just, body. I can't hear anything, but I want to know what's going on so badly that I bottle up my crying as quickly as I can, which is in time to hear Sirius speaking to Smethwyck.

"You have to take her off of whatever you've put her on. She doesn't _want_ to be here. She wants to be with her fiancée." I look over at Regulus.

"See?" I say with a watery smile on my face. "You brother _does_ have a heart." Then I completely and utterly fall apart, and while I'm smiling at the living Sirius for the last time, the part of me that's with Regulus continues to cry.

Then, the pain that I was feeling ends. There is no pain; there is no feeling, period.

But suddenly, I feel a different kind of pain. I've left my friends behind. I've left my unborn child behind. I've left plenty of people who I care about and plenty of people who care about me behind. And all for one person.

"I left them all behind," I moan to Regulus. "I left it all. I left my friendships for love! How is that right? It's friendship that you turn to when love isn't there. What have I done? _Regulus, what did I do?_" Regulus holds me close and rocks me while I babble incoherently, and hums a song to calm me when I start crying.

Once I've gathered myself together, I listen to the song. It isn't anything familiar. "What song is that?" I ask my fiancée.

"It doesn't have a name yet, but it's going to be well-known in the future." I laugh. _Uh huh, sure,_ I think, rolling my eyes.

"Let's go find ourselves a home." With that, Regulus and I set off along the meandering path back to the gates, where we meet Joe, and say hi.

"You're on here now, Julie. You can go in." And we walk, hand-in-hand, through the large gates which swung open for us, into a new, perfect life.

**A/N: What can I say after that ending? Well, I hope you liked it. Leave me a review – good or bad, no critique, whatever. I want some sort of response to this.**


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